Kinas's Chronicle

Spoilers follow.

Kinas:

Kinas’s story starts much the same as that of Sanik: born in Faragawa, he was raised with his brother until the attack on their city. In the midst of the battle, Kinas was left for dead on the field, and Sanik was left believing his little brother had died horribly in the ensuing chaos. Obviously, that was not the case. He was rescued by David Smith, a Light Martial Artist, who adapted Kinas as his apprentice and planned eventual successor. They adapted the home town of Helops, the rival city to Revan. A great hero (Argus) who defended the city of Faragawa during its invasion was chosen to settle the dispute on which city would inherit the Fargawanian legacy. He declared Revan to be better for defense of the nation, and with it as the capital, the nation would never fall. Helops, however, was the better choice for an economic nation, and in the end, that is what was chosen, much to David’s glee and Revan’s defenders’ chagrin.

It was during this time that he met Sinaer, who was also a resident of the city, rescued by David’s rival, Ian Oman, a Darkness Martial Artist and the guardian of Revan (though he stayed in Helops most of the time once it was declared the capital). As such, the two masters strongly discouraged the two from interacting with each other, but of course, that didn’t stop them from frequently meeting and talking with one another. They were in fact quite friendly with another, and had little interaction with others—while David and Ian both interacted with others as part of their jobs plenty, and both Kinas and Sinaer were at least taught social interactions, both David and Ian didn’t want Kinas and Sinaer to get sidetracked from their training, which friends would have done.

So they relied on each other, instead—much to their mentors’ mutual chagrins. They even worked together when they were supposed to be competing against each other on missions, commonly working to achieve the goal together as a team rather than as individuals as they were supposed to be doing. As a result, they grew stronger far more quickly than their mentors had anticipated, both of them becoming quite skilled in their arts by cooperating, exceeding the standards which had been set for them. On the one hand, their mentors both were glad that Kinas and Sinaer were learning at an early age to work with others, and become part of a team, skills they’d need, but both mentors—especially David—warned their students that it’s easier to learn how to be part of a team after having been solo than it is to learn to go solo after having been part of a team: hence their real reason for disapproval.

“What would life be worth without companions?” Kinas had asked in response. David was quite proud of Kinas for realizing that traveling alone would leave them empty—something he knew all too well—but had to force him into solitude.

“What will happen when you are powerless when you’ve lost your companions, or worse, lack the strength to save them?”

David made a compromise with his student: “Five years, Kinas. Give me five years with you, alone, no interaction with Sinaer, to teach you what you need to know. Then I won’t stop you.”

It worked. Five years later, Kinas and Sinaer began competing against each other again. Sinaer took things harder than Kinas, becoming more distant from him, trying to keep things more professional—they legitimately were fighting with each other, fairly often. But despite this, they still cooperated when needed, a fact which Kinas was quite glad of. Slowly, their training was completed, with them steadily becoming more dependent on each other once more, fighting less and less often, and when they got the chance, frequently enjoying their time together. As their final test, they were to fight each other, but because they knew each other so well (and a mutual dislike of the idea of hurting the other), their fight was a stalemate. And as an alternative challenge, the two mentors offered their students a challenge: beat the new adventuring duo which had appeared in David’s home city, Helops.

And when they came face to face, Kinas recognized Sanik instantly. As they fought, Kinas and Sanik struck up a bargain: in exchange for letting Kinas and Sinaer pass their test, Kinas and Sinaer would come along with Sanik and Tyra and form an adventuring party, The Elementals. Their mentors were not amused to learn of it, but accepted that they had technically completed their challenge, and that their training was therefore finished, freeing them to go out into the world, on the condition that they occasionally stop by their home cities, as their new protectors.

To complete Sanik’s idea of an adventuring party, their first stop was the Syr Mountains, where they met Sarge. Kinas and Sinaer felt a little uneasy—they’d interacted mainly with the people of Helops and Revan, unlike Sanik and Tyra, who had not limited their interactions to a select town, both having traveled throughout the land well before they had met up. As such, they let Sanik and Tyra deal with Sarge, while they got accustomed to dealing with different towns, watching Sanik and Tyra’s interactions and trying their best to figure out how to blend in. It paid off, naturally, as by the time The Elementals made their next stop, Kinas and Sinaer were interacting with the new locals just as much as—if not more than—Sanik and Tyra were.

Despite the difficulties of the locals, Kinas and Sinaer managed to strike a chord with them, the two of them understanding their attitudes and getting closer to the locals than Sanik and Tyra could. It was Kinas who got through to M’s friend, L, and after L opened up to them, M was quick to follow. Sanik let Kinas and Sinaer talk things out with M, and eventually, they convinced M to come along with them. When they traveled into the desert, Sinaer felt miserable, but Kinas was there to comfort her, feeling strangely at home, much like Sarge. When The Elementals had difficulty with Enlecar, Kinas and Sinaer stopped to have last words with Enlecar, after he relayed his story and extreme dislike of Sanik.

While their words were reasonable, and Enlecar sympathized, he closed himself off from them, asking them to leave with Sanik. They do so, and after that, the group discusses what to do—when the name Voss of Lejus is brought up, Kinas and Sinaer simultaneously lit up, pointing out to the group that both of their mentors had mentioned Voss multiple times, and while never explicitly admitting it, strongly had implied that they had adventured together at a time, and were most likely very good friends with him.

At Helops, they revealed their mentors, who had been unknown—The Elementals knew David simply as “Smith”, the town’s smith, and Ian as “Old Man”, someone who had given Sanik and later Sanik with Tyra multiple quests to complete. Kinas convinced David, while Sinaer convinced Ian, and the two agreed to talk Voss into it as well. Voss was quite surprised to learn that David and Ian had students, who he quickly deduced were intended as successors, and Kinas could tell that Voss was a little bit disappointed—he clearly had none of his own, nobody adapted as a surrogate child.

Sinaer felt it as well, and the two did their best to bond with him closely, sensing his feelings, and he welcomed them with warm arms, glad to have them there to support him. With Voss quickly agreeing to come along with them, he proposed a few improvements to The Elementals, and offered to guide them. Kinas was all too pleased to accept, and Sanik was just as eager to be assisted by such a legend. Enlecar wasn’t quick to come along once he realized what had happened, but again, Kinas offered Enlecar to stay with them, as Voss had encouraged the group to have a little division, so that when needed, they could split up and accomplish multiple tasks in an orderly fashion, but would still by default be a single group.

When they came to Yeras Wharf, it was Kinas who ended up convincing Sanik that Nathan Betrax should come along with the group, seeing in him a certain talent that escaped most of the others. Sanik—while hesitant—trusted his brother’s judgment, and Nathan became one of Kinas’s companions, along with Sinaer and Enlecar. While the group continued to adventure as a whole, eventually, the need to separate themselves came up, as Voss had predicted, because they were needed in more than one place at the same time:

During the Demonic Invasion of Helopia, The Elementals were in high demand, and Kinas was more than delighted to answer their call. Kinas was present during the final battle, and was there as he saw his brother about to make his move. Sinaer had to restrain him, as he was screaming at his older brother to not be so stupid and throw his life away; Kinas was fully willing to take his place, and pointed out that he would stand a better chance. Sanik shook his head, insisting that it had to be him, thanking Kinas for his support, and telling him to take care of Tyra. This nearly broke Kinas, but nonetheless, he pressed on, and helped Tyra deal with the fallout—he had to have his half of The Elementals break off multiple times to deal with the various missions in need of accomplishing, a division of labor which helped the nation’s wounds heal quickly.

And while his brother’s name was more well-known (with Tyra’s equally recognizable to him), Kinas was making a name for himself as half the party’s leader, directing his half of The Elementals when needed, but still fully accepting Tyra’s command, gladly accepting his brother’s replacement as being better suited for leadership. And when Tyra stepped down to take care of the newly-found but mentally-shattered Sanik, Kinas was willing to endorse Sarge as their leader once more, though was a little concerned: half of The Elementals’ founding members were gone, with the other half typically staying a separate entity, more and more frequently, leaving their original group a little short-staffed.

And it became apparent during the Qirian Invasion that Sarge was in desperate need of aid. Kinas respected his decisions, but feared that he may not have what it’d take to protect their nation from harm. A doubt magnified when Helops itself was threatened—but M pointed out to Kinas that, despite his dislike of the idea, threatening the capital would be exactly what the nation needed to snap back and defeat the invading armies.

Reluctantly, he agreed, and sure enough, the threat sparked the Revans—as a whole still bitter about not being the capital—into mounting their forces to help defend their rivals in Helops, and the nation of Helopia was quick to unite against a common enemy. The victory was only temporary, however, and while the Qirians were driven over the boarder, it was clear they would be back, stronger and more prepared. Kinas asked if there would be a way to get peace, wanting to end the conflict before more lives were lost—but efforts at diplomacy were refused; the Qirians were still bloodthirsty, and nothing would dissuade them in their arrogance.

And then Kinas thought out loud, “These guys deserve to be humbled. They should learn never to underestimate people like us.”

And this is what sparked the idea of a counter-attack, which after much planning, was launched, with the intention of marching on Aqirus, the capital of Aqiria. But it was a trap, and only too late did they realize that they were the ones in need of a good humbling: they were about to pay for their ignorance with many lives. Sarge stayed behind, urging Kinas and his half of The Elementals to rush to the aid of Yeras Wharf, and Kinas’s group fought their way out. Unable to go over the mountains, Kinas’s group was forced to take the far more dangerous and risky route through the Underground Mines, a labyrinth of caves.

They managed to make it through, barely, and raced to the defense of Yeras Wharf, where they fought their hardest, worn out and tired from their effort of arriving. There, they held on until Sarge came, with what reinforcements he had left. But tired from all the fighting they had done, there was little they could do to stop the Qirian army. Nathan pleaded with Kinas to stay and fight, and Kinas begged Sarge not to let the city fall. Sarge said that he couldn’t guarantee that he’d keep the city safe, but he would fight his hardest to ensure that the people within were, and The Elementals held on, desperately, until not a single Yeran was left in Yeras Wharf.

The city fell when The Elementals retreated, but they had saved what was important, proving Voss’s predictions to have been a slight miscalculation, and inspiring hope despite the massive odds. A game of cat-and-mouse ensued with the armies, as Kinas led his half of The Elementals, keeping them retreating, while trying their hardest to fight back, essentially relying on hit-and-run tactics to try and atrophy the Qirians out of resources. Sarge led his half to the Syr Mountains, to prepare for their last stand—if the Syr Mountains fell, no force in Helopia had enough strength to fight back. Natur Valley was too vulnerable, Lejus didn’t have the strength, Helops was vulnerable, and Revan’s defense had been weakened saving Helops.

Kinas bought the group the time they needed to prepare, and eventually, retreated to rejoin them in their final battle, where the fate of Helopia would be decided: it was their final hope of victory, but things were going badly. It looked like everything would be lost.

…And then Sanik reemerged, his presence lightening up The Elementals as a whole, who all gained the confidence needed to fight back: and with them, the avatars of Helopia, the nation was similarly inspired to strike back, and the tide finally turned in their favor, pushing the Qirians back.

And when it came time to make a truce, Helopia actually grew, gaining some Qirian lands as their own. The Elementals and all their members became well-renowned as the saviors of the war-torn land. Kinas’s name rivaled Tyra’s and Sarge’s in fame among them, in certain areas (like Helops and Revan) being more well-known and almost on-par with Sanik. It took time for the nation to heal, but a few years later, things were back to relatively normal, Helopia more powerful than ever before, allowing The Elementals to continue adventuring as a single group in this period of peace.

The Elemental Fighters for the Land, Highest Heroes of Helopia, an honor bestowed on few before them, treated for their great deeds as Saviors of Civilization. Kinas was all too happy to put wars behind him, enjoying the tame life which adventuring offered—it was still dangerous, but it was extremely thrilling, and quite productive, as they helped keep the nation safe.

It was, after all, exactly how they had started out: smallfry doing simple tasks, small adventures which any level 1 hero could undertake—the kind of thing which Kinas had been doing since childhood. Helops became everything Kinas could have hoped for in his city, the city he had been raised in to the point where it was his one and only home. David retired from adventuring again with Ian, though Voss stayed with Kinas and Sinaer as they continued to work together, helping them as much as he could.

But Kinas saw a grim look on his face increasingly often—a look M and Sinaer were well aware of. They asked him, but he refused to answer, only occasionally stopping by with David and Ian about a subject none of them understood.

Twice had they thwarted an invasion—but it turned out the third time would be the “charm”, and Kinas was caught off-guard like everyone else to just how quickly everything could fall apart. The Golden Hero would die with his city and nation, falling to his effective end when things went horribly wrong: an army struck at the heart of the nation with no warning, attacking Helops while their guard was virtually nonexistent.

Kinas was quick to rally his city’s defenses, along with M, Sinaer, Voss, David, and Ian, while the rest of The Elementals were on the field fighting. He was quite alarmed at how they got to Helops, but was confident that The Elementals would triumph. Once he had done everything he could to ready his city for the storm to come, he rejoined his comrades on the field of battle, to help protect his home from yet another threat. Their defenses held against wave after wave, refusing to break down due to Kinas’s stubbornness inspiring his men.

He was a hero. He was their hero. Helops was his town. It was the one place where he outshone all the other Elementals, rivaling even Sanik. He wasn’t going to let harm come to a single one of his people, he swore. His vow could not be broken; The Elementals turned the tide of the surprise-attack in their favor. But feeling the effects of battle, they were worn down by the time the leader of this army presented himself. Kinas was all too eager to charge into battle regardless, ignoring their fatigue and swearing not to fall.

But despite his resolve, he only had so much in him to fight back with, tired out with the rest of The Elementals, as they began to lose the fight against their opponent, the army leader, to the point where he made the mistake to gloat: he revealed he was a mere “Agent Of Chaos”, a simple messenger of his lord, nothing more than a knight backed up by pawns to slay the second rook. And that was enough to inspire for the first time in Kinas, extreme hatred of who he was fighting, not caring about anything else other than destroying the ‘man’ in front of them. That evil had been behind Faragawa falling; Kinas could tell, and wouldn’t let a mere general stand so much of a chance of repeating history.

When the Agent realized his error, as The Elementals were given a second wind and came back to destroy him, he was forced to make a second revelation, to turn the tide back in his favor, revealing his identity. While Kinas was unaffected, Sanik and Tyra (along with Enlecar) were shut down by it, crippling The Elementals. Kinas tried to get them to fight back, trying his hardest to rally them, doing everything he could to snap his leaders out of their trance, but with them distraught, Celaren was able to easily destroy their unity, breaking the group up and finishing them off one by one.

True to his word, Kinas kept fighting on, despite Sanik having fallen, despite Tyra lying there about to die, despite Sarge having been stabbed as he tried to rally the troops himself, despite M being stunned by M’s lack of foresight and being easily dispatched, despite Enlecar having frozen up and let the blow come, despite Nathan having been outclassed, Kinas held on…

…Until Celaren took out Sinaer, and Kinas tried to save her. Unable to intervene, he had to watch as she slowly began to bleed out, powerless to fight back against Celaren, and Celaren used Kinas’s new despair to finish the deed and leave him along with the rest of The Elementals to die. And with them died the defense of Helops, collapsing to a combination of hopelessness and atrophy overwhelming them. All was lost, the city’s walls began to fall, and soon the citizens would be massacred…

…And that is when David, Ian, and Voss stepped in. They challenged Celaren, who was unimpressed by the three men. He merely laughed them off as they entered the battle, unknowingly playing into Voss’s last gambit—he had seen this coming, Kinas realized, and that was why he, David, and Ian had looked so grim as of late: they knew exactly what was to come, but could do nothing to stop it.

They knew just as well as Celaren the result that was to come. Voss could give them a fighting chance, but only that—a chance, to end the fight in a victory, saving the lives of everyone present. Voss worked on teleporting The Elementals away, against their protests to remain, to do something despite how by all rights they had nothing left to give. He healed their wounds as he finished the portal, slowly sending them to safety. But not sending them fast enough that Kinas wouldn’t see their ultimate fate: David single-handedly destroyed almost the entire invading army, leaving them a mere fraction of what they were before, and Celaren—clearly alarmed—decided he needed to deal with David personally.

David, weakened from the effort, was stabbed from behind by Celaren, and died before he could finish the deed, leaving the fraction of the army still living. Kinas took no comfort in his mentor’s death, especially when Ian used it to send an attack to Celaren at the cost of his life, intended to slay Celaren. It almost did, but like with David, he failed in completing the task, merely crippling Celaren and leaving him in extreme pain. Celaren, in a panicked frenzy, decided that if he were to die, he’d at least die taking out all of The Elementals, and dispatched Voss from behind, and after that, the portal faded.

They lived, but it was not a life worth living to Kinas. He had just watched his mentor, his closest friend’s mentor, and their mutual friend, now also extremely close to Kinas, die within moments of each other, leaving the fate of his home unknown as he was transported to Hidenva weakened, without his bow or sword. And when they awoke, it didn’t take long to learn the answer, since the results were so horrific that even half-way around the world, word had spread quickly of the events which had transpired.

Helops, his home, had fallen. And with it, Helopia, his nation, was quick to follow. It was exactly as in Faragawa, only far, far worse, as every hero who could have helped was gone, unlike in Faragawa where the Fargawanians had help. The Helopians on the other hand were left alone, without their guardians, their old protector dead, his replacement shattered and broken half the world away. Those who hadn’t died fighting were left with ruins of a city, in such a bad state that they had to abandon the city. However, with no protection left, most of them perished when fleeing to other cities—and few of said other cities were any refuge at all, suffering fates equally as grim.

The land was corrupted. Roads became hazardous, unsafe to all, forcing the cities into isolation. And while some people survived their main centers being destroyed, fleeing deeper into the terrain, most places had horrendously bad fates, least of which was the Tyrians being poisoned. No, other cities had it far worse, such as Revan, Kinas’s rival city. As predicted, Revan as a capital would have never fallen, the people within tough and quite militaristic. However, with Helops chosen as the capital, the people in Revan were rather poor. Their city was still the best defended in the nation, even stronger than Helops, but economically, they were a wreck.

Internally, therefore, it was easy to sabotage the city, and the army’s spies managed to weaken the defenses enough to allow the remnants of the army to wipe out everyone within, to ensure that the nation of Helopia had no future as Revanus. Lejus, a shining city in its own right, was similarly targeted for oblivion. Unlike Revan, it had always maintained its same level of strength, a testament to Voss’s hometown. Lejus could defend itself, and did—but unfortunately, they had no way to strike back, having zero offense which could impact the invading army.

And nobody would come to give that necessary boost. Every city was weakened and couldn’t make the travel necessary. With no reinforcements, even a small fraction of the army numbering mere hundreds was able to starve out the thousands in Lejus, slowly wearing down their defenses through atrophy. Out of supplies, they ran out of steam, their defenses weakened, and eventually, they fell altogether, allowing the invading army in to wipe them out, destroying everything within. And with the fall of Lejus, only one major city remained in the shattered nation, the final target of the army: Yeras Wharf, Nathan’s home city.

It did not go well for either side. The remnants found that the Yerans were surprisingly resilient, able to put up a strong fight. In fact, the sides were equally matched: despite the Yerans not having much of a military, they were more than a match for the army. It was a mutual massacre. Neither side relented—the army got inside the city and burned it down, but the residents fought to the death. Even after the last of their soldiers died, the Yeran civilians kept on fighting, and in the end, killed the last member of the army.

The threat had been stopped, technically. But at the cost of one of the greatest nations in the land, left completely and totally obliterated. Everything Kinas had lived for, everything he had fought for, was lost—Helopia was gone. Any survivors of the cities (along with the floating city Wevan) fled to their rival nation Aqiria, no longer identifying themselves as members of a dead nation. It was no victory worth calling such. Their mentors dead, their enemy alive (albeit critically wounded), their home a wasteland, all because Sanik and Tyra froze up. Kinas lost himself; no sword and bow, his armor damaged almost beyond repair and his shield broken. He was nothing but a mere shadow of the Kinas he was before, but he took things harder than anyone else had.

He took to drinking. Heavily. There, he sat, in a bar, rotting away, slowly caving in to misery and despair, his gloomy mood slowly twisting his memories, as he pushed away all that was once good and nice in his world away due to the pain, filling it in with the rage, the hatred for Sanik, for Tyra, for Celaren, for his mentors failing him, at himself for not having succeeded, at…everything. It was not a pretty sight. Even Sinaer couldn’t get through to him, as he did his best to push her away as she had once done to him, and she knew then and there exactly how bad he had fallen.

Kinas, the beacon of light for Helops, had died along with his city. The cheery, light-hearted innocent adventurer, the absolute noble member of the group, idealistic and nicer than even Sanik had ceased to exist. In his place was Kinas, the black void of emptiness, where all things negative filled in and consumed him.

At first, his distaste wasn’t that noticeable. But slowly and surely, it began to radiate out, his miserable aura contaminating any who were to try and mend his wounded life. Despite how bad she was feeling, and how Kinas twisted the dagger deeper, Sinaer did her best to snap him out of it, but it didn’t seem to be working, as Kinas saw it as him who was having the dagger squeezed and turned around in his insides, not her. Yet she tried, anyway, and it kept Kinas alive—in extreme pain, but he didn’t kill himself as some of the others feared. And in this state, a spark of life kept him from the pit of absolute despair:

Voss came in and gave him a posthumous message. Kinas, having been close to him, opened up immediately to it. He gave everyone a chance for a fresh start, and had quite the motivational speech for everyone, but especially to Kinas. He told him to listen to Sinaer, and so Kinas did. Sinaer calmed him down, and after Kinas looked like he had gained some semblance of sanity, the message resumed.

He said that Kinas would never be the same, and recognized this, changing his preferred gear and even anticipating Kinas’s change in alignment and element, tailoring his new equipment to meet these new standards. His light armor was repaired, with his shield incorporated into it. He was given his light dagger, and of course the darkness ring, among many other trinkets. He told Kinas that while he would never be the beacon of light he had been, that there could not be darkness without light, and that—while he would be a mere shadow of himself—he had the potential to, if he kept in mind who he really is—to become greater than even Sanik.

And Voss left Kinas a personal message, which Sanik didn’t understand, but Kinas was surprised for a brief moment to hear, though he quickly realized he shouldn’t have: “Oh, and Kinas? I wish you and The Latens…good luck.”

Voss predicted Kinas wanting to split off and form his own adventuring group—even getting the name of them—before Kinas had decided them, though he had been thinking of all of those things. And he ran it by Sinaer, who was more than happy to see Kinas not quite back to his old self, but good enough that she agreed—Kinas might be a changed man, but he’d still be the same adventurer he was before, eager to accept a challenge and take on things which he shouldn’t survive but making it through, anyway.

Working with his own charisma, he got Nathan and Enlecar to join him, and the four of them left, to go separate directions from The Elementals, as The Latens, now trying to outgrow the shadow of their former name.

And this is how Kinas got to be who he is to this day: The Chaotic Evil cynical jerk, but tough, spirited leader of The Latens, dealing in the art of deception with his illusions via the Darkness Element he now felt more comfortable in.